Seems that David Gregory and NBC news, who violated the law on national TV, went and got permission from the ATF. Seems that once the Obama Administration stepped in, permission was granted. It’s OK to break the law so long as it’s propaganda for the administration. And the permission looks to have come 3 days too late? i.e., they phoned in a favor after the fact.

Selective enforcement of the law is a pretty common theme with this administration.

***************Some interesting points made in the comments, too, such as:

Minute Man Says:December 26th, 2012 at 11:07 pm

There is, in fact, without any hyperbole, a lawless, Third World-style system now in operation. It bears no relation to anything in US history.And the fault lies not in our despicable and sub-mediocre “leadership”, but in ourselves (that is, any of your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers who make up the ignorant, greedy, racist, clueless majority.

And:

rickn8or Says:December 26th, 2012 at 9:57 pm

So if we get caught with anything illegal in DC, all we gotta do is tell the cop we want a “David Gregory”?

Uhh...since when does the ATF have any jurisdiction over magazines, and since when do they enforce local gun laws? The ATF wouldn't give a crap if I took one of my ARs into California, since I didn't violate any federal laws.

Uhh...since when does the ATF have any jurisdiction over magazines, and since when do they enforce local gun laws? The ATF wouldn't give a crap if I took one of my ARs into California, since I didn't violate any federal laws.

I believe the message we've just been sent is "we own the power, and we do what we want."

In NY, DC, and other places, ordinary citizens have had their lives ruined and bank accounts drained for this and less.

Uhh...since when does the ATF have any jurisdiction over magazines, and since when do they enforce local gun laws? The ATF wouldn't give a crap if I took one of my ARs into California, since I didn't violate any federal laws.

not an ATF regulation, but a DC ordinance and the agency they asked permission from and were denied permission was the DC police dept.

Classroom Progressive hand-wringing over potential conservative wooing of America’s young votersIf David Gregory were not David GregoryCommentsPermalinkPosted by William A. Jacobson Wednesday, December 26, 2012 at 4:11pm

He’d already be in jail.

Now that the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department is on record that it told NBC News not to use the high capacity magazine in its segment with Wayne LaPierre, the big media is paying attention and taking this seriously.

TMZ is running interference claiming that NBC News was told by ATF that the D.C. Police said it was okay, but the D.C. Police say they were asked directly by NBC News for permission and that permission was denied.

The NY Times actually has a sensible and informative story on it:

In Washington, people who are caught in possession of the type of magazine that Mr. Gregory had can face up to a year in prison, said David Benowitz, a criminal defense lawyer.

“You would be arrested; you would most likely be charged with possession of an illegal magazine,” Mr. Benowitz said, adding that “depending on what time you were arrested, you would most likely be held overnight.”

Prosecutors and defense lawyers often work out a plea agreement in which defendants receive probation and have a misdemeanor charge on their criminal record, Mr. Benowitz said. If defendants have a prior criminal record or lose a jury trial, they could face a stiffer sentence.

Mr. Benowitz said the accusation from the police that NBC had asked for permission and then went ahead with showing the magazine “didn’t help Gregory’s case.”

Yeah, asking for permission is pretty damning when you ignore what you are told directly from the law enforcement authority and do it anyway.

Unfortunately, the otherwise great Greta has missed the point on this, Investigating NBC’s David Gregory? Really? Can we be any sillier?

We have so many serious issues of violence in this country — and even here in DC on our dangerous streets — that it is bizarre to me that anyone would spend (waste) 5 minutes investigating NBC’s David Gregory for this.

One of the problems with the ever expanding gun laws advocated by Gregory and others is that otherwise law-abiding citizens get caught up inadvertently violating the law, like this soldier on leave from Afghanistan, while criminals do what they please and powerful people don’t get prosecuted.

The guns laws, as presently constituted and as proposed, turn us into a nation of men not of laws.

What Greta doesn’t understand is that David Gregory isn’t being investigated because he’s David Gregory; if he were anyone else, he’d already be in jail.

The double-standard being applied by the media to Gregory was ready-made for Iowahawk:

So the press has declared David Gregory not guilty by reason of celebrity.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 26, 2012

David Gregory can have and do illegal stuff because journalism. And because free speech. Also, because shut up.

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 26, 2012

You can’t be prosecuted for breaking a law you support. #TheDavidGregoryLoophole

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) December 26, 2012

@aoshq I’m less worried about the “gun show loophole” than the “talk show loophole.”

The problem you will run into in prosecuting him is the magazine itself, or rather, the fact that it was not seized. Since it was not seized it cannot be tested by a crime lab to determine that it was a functional magazine with a capacity of greater than *the legal limit in DC*. Since that cannot be tested, it cannot be proven. So, unless he then takes the stand and say "yep, it sure was" or he stipulates to that fact, he will likely walk.

Not, mind you, that I really want him to walk. Not, midn you, that I doubt for a second that it was a real 30 rounder. Not, mind you, that I would not giggle like a little girl if he got arrested on set, on the air, for doing on network TV what others are denied the right to do. I'm just laying out the realities of the case.

I accept all that. But arrest the guy, book him, charge him, and let the network waste a bunch of money defending him. Make a big fluffing deal about it. Even when he walks, it still shows that violating the law isn't just for the 99%.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you mean "citizen's arrest", it does, but it usually only applies to felonies, and I believe DC's mag ban is a misdemeanor.

Interesting sidebar, in Ohio the police and private citizens derive their arrest powers from the same clause in the state code and constitution. The only thing different about the police is that they have the power to arrest for minor crimes (misdemeanors) as well. All felony arrests in Ohio are, essentially, citizen's arrests.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you mean "citizen's arrest", it does, but it usually only applies to felonies, and I believe DC's mag ban is a misdemeanor.

Interesting sidebar, in Ohio the police and private citizens derive their arrest powers from the same clause in the state code and constitution. The only thing different about the police is that they have the power to arrest for minor crimes (misdemeanors) as well. All felony arrests in Ohio are, essentially, citizen's arrests.

Mike

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

No a citizen's arrest is something different. In a private prosecution an individual (or their lawyer) takes on the role of prosecutor instead of the state and at their own expense.

Which is a pity, in some ways, because you could have a lot of fun with elites who believe that the rules are only for the little people.

Mike

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

In fact the only example I can think of is when someone tried to prosecute Douglas Hurd and Francis Maude (two government ministers from the early 90's) for treason in their role in negotiating the Maastrich Trety. The Crown Prosecution Service (our state prosecutors) took over the case and then dropped it as 'Not in the public interest'. Note that they did not say there was no chance of a prosecution.The elite will always find a way to remain unaccountable.

In fact, getting back to the example at hand, of CBS violating firearms laws, I have witnessed similar examples in the UK.Channel 4 once had a deactivated Uzi reactivated and illegally removed key parts of a pistol from a club. Sky News purchased a deactivated Uzi alogn with new (and unlawful) components to get it working again.To the best of my knowledge neither 'news' outlets were charged with these violations of the law. Sky News specifically omitted from its report any mention of how the replacement parts they obtained were illegal while they were calling for the banning of deactivated guns.

I accept all that. But arrest the guy, book him, charge him, and let the network waste a bunch of money defending him. Make a big fluffing deal about it. Even when he walks, it still shows that violating the law isn't just for the 99%.

But . . . “David Gregory can have and do illegal stuff because journalism. And because free speech. Also, because shut up.” - Iowahawk

The problem you will run into in prosecuting him is the magazine itself, or rather, the fact that it was not seized. Since it was not seized it cannot be tested by a crime lab to determine that it was a functional magazine with a capacity of greater than *the legal limit in DC*. Since that cannot be tested, it cannot be proven. So, unless he then takes the stand and say "yep, it sure was" or he stipulates to that fact, he will likely walk.

Not, mind you, that I really want him to walk. Not, midn you, that I doubt for a second that it was a real 30 rounder. Not, mind you, that I would not giggle like a little girl if he got arrested on set, on the air, for doing on network TV what others are denied the right to do. I'm just laying out the realities of the case.

The DC law says "...or can be readily converted to hold more..."; so, even if it was an empty box with no spring or follower, it is still illegal.

Assuming Mr. Gregory did not stipulate to the fact that it was a 30 round magazine, the prosecution would still need to prove that it was one, or could be readily converted into one. That is not possible without the magazine to analyze.

A week ago on NBC’s Meet the Press, David Gregory brandished on screen a high-capacity magazine. To most media experts, a “high-capacity magazine” means an ad-stuffed double issue of Vanity Fair with the triple-page perfume-scented pullouts. But apparently in America’s gun-nut gun culture of gun-crazed gun kooks, it’s something else entirely, and it was this latter kind that Mr. Gregory produced in order to taunt Wayne LaPierre of the NRA. As the poster child for America’s gun-crazed gun-kook gun culture, Mr. LaPierre would probably have been more scared by the host waving around a headily perfumed Vanity Fair. But that was merely NBC’s first miscalculation. It seems a high-capacity magazine is illegal in the District of Columbia, and the flagrant breach of D.C. gun laws is now under investigation by the police.

So what? Neither are the overwhelming majority of his fellow high-capacity-magazine-owning Americans. Yet they’re expected to know, as they drive around visiting friends and family over Christmas, the various and contradictory gun laws in different jurisdictions. Ignorantia juris non excusat is one of the oldest concepts in civilized society: Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Back when there was a modest and proportionate number of laws, that was just about doable. But in today’s America there are laws against everything, and any one of us at any time is unknowingly in breach of dozens of them. And in this case NBC were informed by the D.C. police that it would be illegal to show the thing on TV, and they went ahead and did it anyway: You’ll never take me alive, copper! You’ll have to pry my high-capacity magazine from my cold dead fingers! When the D.C. SWAT team, the FBI, and the ATF take out NBC News and the whole building goes up in one almighty fireball, David Gregory will be the crazed loon up on the roof like Jimmy Cagney in White Heat: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” At last, some actual must-see TV on that lousy network.

But, even if we’re denied that pleasure, the “dumbest media story of 2012” is actually rather instructive. David Gregory intended to demonstrate what he regards as the absurdity of America’s lax gun laws. Instead, he’s demonstrating the ever greater absurdity of America’s non-lax laws. His investigation, prosecution, and a sentence of 20–30 years with eligibility for parole after ten (assuming Mothers Against High-Capacity Magazines don’t object) would teach a far more useful lesson than whatever he thought he was doing by waving that clip under LaPierre’s nose.

To Howard Kurtz & Co., it’s “obvious” that Gregory didn’t intend to commit a crime. But, in a land choked with laws, “obviousness” is one of the first casualties — and “obviously” innocent citizens have their “obviously” well-intentioned actions criminalized every minute of the day. Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?

Anything involving guns is even less amenable to “obviousness.” A few years ago, Daniel Brown was detained at LAX while connecting to a Minneapolis flight because traces of gunpowder were found on his footwear. His footwear was combat boots. As the name suggests, the combat boots were returning from combat — eight months of it, in Iraq’s bloody and violent al-Anbar province. Above the boots he was wearing the uniform of a staff sergeant in the USMC Reserve Military Police and was accompanied by all 26 members of his unit, also in uniform. Staff Sergeant Brown doesn’t sound like an “obvious” terrorist. But the TSA put him on the no-fly list anyway. If it’s not “obvious” to the government that a serving member of the military has any legitimate reason for being around ammunition, why should it be “obvious” that a TV host has?

Three days after scofflaw Gregory committed his crime, a bail hearing was held in Massachusetts for Andrew Despres, 20, who’s charged with trespassing and possession of ammunition without a firearms license. Mr. Despres was recently expelled from Fitchburg State University and was returning to campus to pick up his stuff. Hence the trespassing charge. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a “military-style ammunition belt.” Hence, the firearms charge.

His mom told WBZ that her son purchased the belt for $20 from a punk website and had worn it to class every day for two years as a “fashion statement.” He had no gun with which to fire the bullets. Nevertheless, Fitchburg police proudly displayed the $20 punk-website ammo belt as if they’d just raided the Fitchburg mafia’s armory, and an obliging judge ordered Mr. Despres held on $50,000 bail. Why should there be one law for Meet the Press and another for Meet Andrew Despres? Because David Gregory throws better cocktail parties?

The argument for letting him walk rests on his membership of a protected class — the media. Notwithstanding that (per Gallup) 54 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the NRA while only 40 percent have any trust in the media, the latter regard themselves as part of the ruling class. Which makes the rest of you the ruled. Laws are for the little people — and little people need lots of little laws, ensnaring them at every turn.

This is all modern life is. Ernest Hemingway had a six-toed cat. The cat begat. (Eat your heart out, Doctor Seuss.) So descendants of his six-toed cat still live at the Hemingway home in Key West. Tourists visit the property. Thus, the Department of Agriculture is insisting that the six-toed cats are an “animal exhibit” like the tigers at the zoo, and therefore come under federal regulation requiring each to be housed in an individual compound with “elevated resting surfaces,” “electric wire,” and a night watchman. Should David Gregory be treated more leniently than a domestic cat just because when Obama tickles his tummy he licks the president’s hand and purrs contentedly?

There are two possible resolutions: Gregory can call in a favor from some Obama consigliere who’ll lean on the cops to disappear the whole thing. If he does that, he’ll be contributing to the remorseless assault on a bedrock principle of free societies — equality before the law. Laws either apply to all of us or none of us. If they apply only to some, they’re not laws but caprices — and all tyranny is capricious.

Or he can embrace the role in which fate has cast him. Sometimes a society becomes too stupid to survive. Eleven-year-old girls fined for rescuing woodpeckers, serving Marines put on the no-fly list, and fifth-generation family cats being ordered into separate compounds with “electric wire” fencing can all testify to how near that point America is. But nothing “raises awareness” like a celebrity spokesman. Step forward, David Gregory! Dare the prosecutor to go for the death penalty — and let’s make your ammo the non-shot heard round the world!

But he stated on the air it was a "high capacity" magazine, didn't he? And it LOOKS like one.

Lots of people have been prosecuted and convicted on circumstantial evidence.

If I take a toy gun, put it in my pocket, walk down a street in DC, pull it out, claim it is real- and it looks real- am I guilty of carrying a concealed weapon? I said it was real, it looked real - but it wasn't.

The same applies to Gregory. It looked real, he said it was real, but absent the magazine to test, it cannot be determined that it IS real. You have enough PC to arrest (and I think he probably should be charged), but you won't get a conviction.

The problem you will run into in prosecuting him is the magazine itself, or rather, the fact that it was not seized. Since it was not seized it cannot be tested by a crime lab to determine that it was a functional magazine with a capacity of greater than *the legal limit in DC*. Since that cannot be tested, it cannot be proven. So, unless he then takes the stand and say "yep, it sure was" or he stipulates to that fact, he will likely walk.

Not, mind you, that I really want him to walk. Not, midn you, that I doubt for a second that it was a real 30 rounder. Not, mind you, that I would not giggle like a little girl if he got arrested on set, on the air, for doing on network TV what others are denied the right to do. I'm just laying out the realities of the case.

The hurdle that must be overcome is 'beyond a reasonable doubt' not 'absolute ironclad 100%'

To prosecute they'd show the TV clip, show the statement that was made identifying it was a 30 round mag, then bring in an expert to identify it as a 30 round mag.

That there is a pretty strong case.

Now, the defense has some options. Gregory could testify that it was a prop and not a real magazine but then #1 he goes on record has having deceived the viewership (most of his fans wouldn't care) and #2 you can now question him and either get leverage on other people or trip him up (we had the Prop guy run to the local walmart and buy an air-soft look-alike...so the cops check with the local walmarts and find they don't stock that item)

They could procure an 'after the fact' look-alike and present it as the one from the show, but this would require getting a lot of people to stay quiet about tempting to deceive the court. Pretty big risk that not a single person involved in the deception would reveal it, especially because the poop-storm would be 10X and reach much higher if they were caught with a stunt like that.

Even if he DID get off on the charges because they couldn't PROVE the mag was a 30 rounder by loading in 30 rounds...everyone else who was convicted of the same thing could argue that the magazine was never established to be an 'over legal capacity' mag, it just looked like one. DC is one of those cities were gun stuff is often melted down after the conviction. Chances are high the original evidence wouldn't be sitting around.

I'm well aware of what the standard is. The problem is that any expert who is actually an expert would testify under cross-ex that it looks like a 30 round magazine, but he would not be able to say for sure without examining it. The defense could then request a directed verdict, and probably get it. The prosecution is required to prove that it is a forbidden magazine, and they didn't. Case over.

If the judge decided not to go that route, they could still rest at that point, though the jury would probably find this curious, and the last thing you want is a curious jury. To be safe, all they would have to do is give some plausible explanation at trial. It was an airsoft mag, it was a fake magazine used as a prop, it was a real mag that was permanently disabled. There would be no time for followup investigtion, no time for any sort of sleuthing to dig around and see if such a thing had ever been purchased by network personnel. The defense would rest and you would be at closing arguments.

You have PC to arrest. Absent unforseen facts or some real legal ineptitude, you will not get a conviction in cases in which there is something to be examined (a gun, a magazine, drugs, etc) and you don't do an examination.

So if I commit the "crime" of brandishing with a fake gun, and it is captured on video, all I have to do is destroy the fake gun and when I go to court testify it wasn't real and I get off? Sweet.

You might get convicted of menacing, or some version of threatening another, but absent a firearm that was tested for functionality, it would be difficult to convict you of a crime in which utilization of a gun was an element of the offense.

Prosecution: 'from this far away, could this be a prop or airsoft magazine?'Expert: 'Yes...but not likely in my expert opinion'Prosecution: 'And why do you say it is not likely'Expert: 'Well, first, there are probably 10,000 real 30 round magazines for every prop or airsoft look-alike, so the odds alone make it highly likely, second, the wear on the top of the magazine is consistent with what you would find on a real magazine but not a prop or airsoft, and finally every airsoft magazine I have seen, the part hidden by the magwell will have tell-tail features such as a winding hole or other, similar structures'Prosecution :'If you had to attach a probability, a percent, to your likelyhood that it is indeed a real, 30 round magazine, what would you give?'Expert: 'more than 99%'

And then you with questioning bring in when this same expert does 'ballistic matches' he can never know for absolute certainty, but instead gives only his 'expert opinion' that it is 'extremely likely' just like any other analyst does, be it a fingerprint expert, a handwriting expert, whatever.